herbs

All posts tagged herbs

Popeye all year round

Posted by gardenpathfood on April 10, 2013
Posted in: Autumn foods, Eating Seasons, Health, Links to other sites, Spring foods, Spring Jobs, Summer foods, The plants in my garden, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

I got a bit excited on the weekend when I went to the Hervey Bay markets and found a summer spinach. Spinach is such a useful vegetable but with the very hot summers out here, it didn’t make it past November very successfully. Still, I’d had about 6 months out of it.

Otherwise known as Ceylon Spinach or Malabar Greens, this summer growing spinach like plant (Basella alba) grows best on a small IMG_0019trellis and dies off in winter but is apparently very good at setting seed. Since, I love to find babies in the garden, this plant would suit me well, I thought.

It seemed like the perfect solution, English Spinach, kale and silverbeet in the winter and Malabar Greens in the summer but on a second look and some discussion with the lady who sold the plant to me, we decided it would frost.  It is a tropical plant after all.  I almost put it back and then thought ‘well, it’s going to die back in winter anyway so let’s find the best spot possible in the garden for it, make sure it has a seed bed and watch what happens. ‘ I do have a back up plan though- I planted one at the house in Hervey Bay as well where the winters are much less harsh and the springs and early summer are more humid.  So watch this space…….. and while you are waiting you could also check out these two information sites.

Suzi you will love this one but she does warn you not to use it in your smoothies!!!

http://www.thewellnesswarrior.com.au/2012/02/a-tasty-herb-to-improve-your-digestive-health/

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2660517.htm

Onion Breath

Posted by gardenpathfood on November 17, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Autumn jobs, Eating Seasons, Food, Health, Links to other sites, Spring foods, Summer foods, The plants in my garden, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

November bounty

Onions are very good for you and have been used by many cultures for their health benefits and apparently they are the world’s biggest horticultural crop, after tomatoes.

According to this website:

http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/updates/onions.php

health benefits include relief from asthma, coughs, colds, cardiovascular problems and stomach cancer.

So, I will happily be putting my little red onions on my sandwiches, in my salads and anywhere else I can use them.  There are lots in the garden and since I planted them a bit close, I am picking out the bigger ones now to allow the others to grow.

This collection of garden produce above (and the red throat emperor caught by my husband) became Emperor with red onion and tarragon in white wine sauce.

I have only just discovered Tarragon. I didn’t realise what it was that I love so much in the occasional dish we had eaten out, but now I do know, I will be using a lot more of it.

There have been a mile of strawberries this season and this year they have a particularly sweet, toffee smell. We  have them for breakfast every morning, but we have had so many that this lot teamed up with maple syrup and home- made ice-cream for dessert.  I love strawberry season!!

Parsley, Parsley everywhere

Posted by gardenpathfood on October 9, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Eating Seasons, Food, Health, Links to other sites, Recipes, Spring foods, Spring Jobs, Summer foods, Summer Jobs, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Work Season. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’m told that you never let parsley go to seed, so every now and again it needs to be cut back, especially in spring.

Tabbouleh using quinoa

So, fighting off the mating brown snakes in the garden, I did that and then decided to make tabbouleh with the cuttings.

I’m not a great fan of tabbouleh usually, especially the commercial variety but I found this recipe  at http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/4827/quinoa-tabbouleh.aspx

and it is really good.  It uses quinoa instead of burghul and quite a lot of lemon juice.

Parsley has a lot of health benefits including being full of anti-oxidents but you can find them out for yourself by visiting http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/parsley.html

Oregano Invasion

Posted by gardenpathfood on July 16, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Autumn jobs, Eating Seasons, Food, Soil, Spring foods, Summer foods, The plants in my garden, Winter Foods, Work Season. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

All that is left of the poor old oregano

Three years ago, I planted oregano in the raised garden bed.

Be warned, oregano is aggressive so I would suggest that you don’t plant it in an open garden bed. It had taken over most of the second tier of the garden and was busily trying to invade the top.

My raised garden has been looking a little ragged between the oregano and the strawberries which had both run rampant, with a bit of couch thrown in for extra weeding.  I don’t mind the strawberries being wild, but there is only so much oregano you can eat.

Usually, I can manage to keep the couch in the strawberries under control, but the oregano and couch share a very similar root system and became inextricably entwined.  At last, I decided I needed to get tough and I have dug it all out.  Underneath it, the soil was beautiful with worms and grubs and beautiful texture, so I suspect it has acted as a great soil improver, while providing me with more oregano than I could ever use.

I gave some of the runners to an Italian friend who uses oregano on his magnificent pizzas, replanted some and disposed of the rest where they won’t invade anyone’s garden or lawn.

Real thyme

Posted by gardenpathfood on July 2, 2012
Posted in: Autumn foods, Eating Seasons, Food, Health, Links to other sites, Quotes, Spring foods, Summer foods, Winter Foods. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

From ‘In Defence of Food’ by Michael Pollan,   Penguin Books,  p64/65,  2008

‘Indeed, to look at the chemical compostion of any common food is to realise just how much complexity lurks within it. Here’s a list of just the antioxidents that have been identified in a leaf of garden variety thyme: alanine, anethole essential oil, apigenin, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, caffeic acid, camphene  ‘  (You get the picture, there are  29 more).

He goes on to say  ‘This is what you ingest when you eat food flavoured with thyme. Some of these chemicals are broken down by your digestion, but others go on to do various as-yet-undetermined things to your body: turning some gene’s expression on or off, perhaps or intercepting a free radical before it disturbs a strand of DNA deep in some cell.  It would be great to know how this all works, but in the meantime we can enjoy thyme in the knowledge that it probably doesn’t do any harm (since people have been eating it forever) and that it might actually do some good ( since people have been eating it forever) and even if it does nothing at all, we like the way it tastes.

My Garden Philosophy

Posted by gardenpathfood on May 30, 2012
Posted in: Background Information. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

The simple souls Vegie Garden- enjoyment all year round

I‘d like to point out here that I am not a food affiicionado nor am I totally dedicated to a completely self sustainable future- after all, what will the farmers do then?

I derive a huge amount of pleasure and relaxation from my garden though, and the satisfaction, both oral and mental of growing my own vegetable and fruits.

One of the commonest mistakes that aspiring gardeners make, is to plant a garden full of seedlings and then wait for the crops to come in. Unfortunately, when they do, it is usually all at once and you give most of it away or spend a heap of time making pickles. This is not my idea of fun.

The principles I stick to with my garden are simple and we’ll go into them in more detail later but here’s a peek:

  • Make sure that you have as many perennial or retoon type of crops as possible
  • Plant the things you’ll use regularly such as herbs and spring onions as close to the kitchen as you can
  • Look after your soil and it will look after you
  • Allow some things to go to seed then watch carefully for seedlings to come up- imagine your (and your children’s) pleasure and excitement when you find babies in the garden
  • Don’t use automatic sprinklers. You will find that the more accurately you water your garden, the less weeds will grow. So you spend your time holding the hose rather than weeding. I know which I prefer.
  • Have several alternate spaces in your garden so that you can rotate your planting areas.
  • Think very carefully about where you site the garden.  Look at the sun position and also consider how easy it will be to get the hose there.
  •  Remember that most of the time, you will need to pick when you cook dinner. Unless you like rustling around in the dark, make sure your everyday garden is in a spot where the lights reach.

I love to have some of my fruits and vegetables spread throughout the yard with the ornamental plants.